Born to be Dialed

The World at your fingertips

Reviewing the strange trends that have accompanied media revolutions, it occured to me that Marshal McLuhan’s thesis of new media overtaking functions of older one’s was worth pondering in relation to the Internet. Especially digital network media seem to be endowed with a revolutionary force no other medium has ever possessed. In their alleged annihilation of physical space, of lived experience, of social relations, in their drastic rewriting of the rules of business, and the vast opportunities of self-reflection and creation, the digital (network) media find their way into every conceivable act of interaction.

Yet, a quite opposite thesis would hold that these new media merely facilitate and improve what was already there. Now, everyone can make nice and professional looking pictures with a plethora of easy-to-use digital cameras and imaging software. While the developers are working on the next big hit in interaction design, it’s the bulky Yellow Pages disappearing from the hall. Search engine availability optimizes the use of one of the oldest modern media… the telephone. It has become so common to call someone in case of a knowledge gap or where actions need to be coordinated instead of finding an individual solution to a problem. Formulaic language is introduced, similar to a code pattern, that is exchanged vocally instead of a nuanced written text. The easy availability of contact data forces some to artificially close the channel, block off communication to be able to perform their assigned professional functions. On the back of ready access comes a new culture of exclusivity.

“I pick up my telephone receiver and it’s all there; the whole marginal network catches and harasses me with the insupportable good faith of everything that wants and claims to communicate.”

(Baudrillard: “The Ecstasy of Communication”)

define:symbolic

Introducing _ Abrasion Studies No 1

It has been a hobby of mine to collect traces of abrasion all around me. In shops like H&M or department stores, the floor shows traces of abrasion always at certain main routes that people take to get to the elevator, the newsstand or other main points of interest. Initially I became aware of abrasion in Japan, where the art of wood work has a long standing tradition and temples are made to exist for many hundreds of years.

A particular aspect of wood as a material is that it can get wet and dry easily, especially very hard woods, like the Japanese cedar. Abrasion makes the surface smooth and flat, allowing water to roll of and keep the surface from deteriorating. In all kinds of arts, abrasion smooths out uneven levels, makes shine surfaces and heightens the appeal and durability of certain materials. The quality of an even surface, that is the microscopic density of molecules, is largely determined by the degree of abrasion. A very fine polishing stone for metal (3000+) lets you create very sharp knives which don’t wear off easily, because the distance between particles is very low. For any process of abrasion, an abrasive tool is applied to a surface of a lower density under pressure.

“Abrasion resistance refers to resistance to being worn away by rubbing or friction. Abrasion resistance is a matter of toughness, rather than hardness. It is a necessary quality for floor finishes, enamels and varnishes.”

From: top500.de

To my eyes, processes of natural and man-made abrasion mark counter-acting forces: For artifacts and handicrafts to develop abrasion stands at the beginning of culture and goes down to industrialization by continuously scrap off coal from the mountain or dig it from the landscape. At the same time, natural abrasion is the counter force to man-made culture, as we see in winds and water which causes erosion of coastlines and deterioration of concrete and stone surfaces. Applied over a long term, even small particles like sand can force denser structures to crumble. The keyword here is continuous.

What is abrasion studies?

So far abrasion studies (German: Abrieb) is more a hobby than a field of study. To give you an idea, I collected some pictures of abrasion and my free interpretation of them in relation to social processes. Inevitable, traces on the material floor of a station or a department store tell us something about the social dynamics, since the traces of abrasion have been brought about by a continuous, repetitive movement of large numbers of people that interact with a given material in an identical fashion. Thus traces of social movements are inscribed in the material world. Lets decipher some of them.

This a brass handrail in a museum. It is located in the left side of the stairs, so that people who descend approach it once they reach the first step on the top. However, they seem to let loose once they are on the stairs. What does that tell us? The frightening length and height of the stairs prompts you (me too) to seek safety. But once you discover that the stairs are wide enough and not steep at all, the handrail is no longer needed (for most of us).

My favorite example that should be familiar from many cities. Apparently the “Orange Line” is a popular way to travel the center of Berlin, as it connects East and West. As people look for their way they scratch on the map. The more people come to Berlin, the more they wipe out the center. In a very Barthesian twist (”L’Empire des Signes”), I would extend that interpretation to the city, not just the map. They more the center is designed for easy consumption and mega shopping malls, the more flows of tourists wipe out the historical center of the city. In Berlin, this center was empty anyway due to the Berlin Wall. After 1989 there have been attempts to artificially re-erect it as an island called “Potsdamer Platz”, which does not offer much of an urban experience after 10 p.m.

This is a listening station in a department store. Apparently, PLAY, FF, SKIP, and VOL UP seem to be the most popular buttons. Does it mean that no one takes the time to listen to music attentively any more? Or is the capacity of hearing deteriorating? Does it say something about the CD as a fast-forward medium, when parts of electronica sound like a fast-forward rush? I wonder what the players in the classical music department look like? Maybe the same?

More to come…

Baudrillard and Symbolic Exchange

This is my Master’s Thesis on the writings of French sociologist Jean Baudrillard with
special emphasis on his concept of “symbolic exchange“. Largely known as a media
philosopher with a unique style of language and thinking, Baudrillard became famous
with the term simulation – a cultural state where media make for a sign-saturated,
hyperreal environment, where reality is lost. This paper argues that simulation has been
misinterpreted on the grounds of a Platonic phallacy in the discourse around Baudrillard
in the postmodernism debate. Instead, this paper traces Baudrillard’s roots in Emile
Durkheim’s investigations of „collective representations“ and religion among primitive
peoples. Durkheim’s writings on the primitive is presented alongside the media theory of
Marshal McLuhan and his followers as an important background for Baudrillard.
The paper traces Baudrillards windy road to simulation from his earlier writings on
consumerism, across his critique of Semiotics and Marxism to the crucial concept of
critical reversal called „symbolic exchange“. In an attempt to circumvent the
epistemological “desert of the real“ this paper argues that “symbolic exchange“can be
employed as a useful concept to analyse networked communication on the basis of
voluntary and reciprocal human relations. The paper includes references to a large body
of secondary literature and in-depth explorations of Baudrillard’s idiosyncratic
vocabulary.

I offer the complete file for download under a by-nc-nd licence here. Comments, remarks and requests for partial translations are welcome. The file is as yet only available in German.

Baudrillard and Symbolic Exchange

Science as a Vacation

I don’t want to question the merits of either Peter Sloterdijk nor Rüdiger Safranski, both acclaimed philosophers in Germany, but point to a more general trend among the German humanities which explicitly deals with the break of symbolic exchanges in the Academia – in Germany and elsewhere probably. I am told that Safranski’s book on Nietzsche is highly readable and serves as a profound introduction for non-experts. For Sloterdijk, the case is harder, his “Sphären” (Spheres, as yet not translated into English, only Spanish as Esferas) repelled me when I glanced over the first sentences but I am not an expert on philosophy either. It might have its merits in certain respects among the community.

Both are good at writing it seems, but their TV show on ZDF shows the unbridgeable gap between the so called “ivory tower” of philosophy and the language of practitioners such as Otto Schilly, former German Minister of Interior. The subject was security and how to keep it. Schilly had been accused of curtailing civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism during his term. It was Safranski, who started a monologue about how Ministers live in a safe environment with bullet proof windows, bodyguards and safe work spheres, that they imagine the outside world to be inherently hostile. Thus they perceive of the outside as a threat and enemy, passing stricter laws against criminals and terrorists even as a preemptive measure. Schilly had a laugh at the philosopher’s indulgence in his own words and “theorizing”. At this point the audience was undecided which threat to follow. I follow Schilly here, neither to endorse his reasoning, nor to get involved in the debate about security. But the pointlessness of such philosophic discourse was revealed in that very moment, as Safranski and Sloterdijk kept on pondering their ideas. It became clear that Schilly and the others were concerned with different sorts of questions. Where decisions mark the horizon of theorizing, philosophy turns into science as a vacation from decision-making. But more accurately, this sort of science has lost any contact with the public that makes it possible.

Max Weber wrote a marvelous article on “Science as a Vocation” in 1917 (several versions exist) where he detailed not only the exterior factors of the academic apparatus, the status relationships and financial structure, but more importantly the “inner disposition” of the scientist. The conclusion is that Science is dedicated to a “cause” first and foremost, but with the ultimate realization that any scientific achievement will be and wants to be surpassed. After struggling through the busy days of assistant, the new scientist steps up to a more influential position, where he is finally able to achieve his true vocation. But his findings will be at the hight of their time only for a short period of time – 10 years or 20 at the maximum. He will be criticized, refuted and ultimately he is forgotten. That has nothing to do with the shelf-life of books, it is the course of progress, according to Weber. Today, science is only rarely identified with a vocation but rather seen as a profession. This is in part founded on the break of symbolic relationships between professors and disciples that for a long time ensured the passing of knowledge outside the immediate realm of publications.

For Weber and others, the crowd of disciples has been the vanguard against oblivion. Whereas the natural sciences need a certain group of new staff for complex measurements and experimentation, the humanities have problems enticing new disciples to the challenge of being soon forgotten, because the idols in the the cosy ivory tower of narcissist reflection stay beyond their deadline of achievement. Certainly, there is always a spill-out of dubious texts on less obvious subjects in the humanities. No one should want to regard intellectual production only in the light of a subsequent publication. But for the most part, publications in the German “Geisteswissenschaften” seem to favor another interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation.

This is especially true of Media Studies, which has lingered as an open form between philosophy, sociology and advertising research. The obligatory reference to Baudelaire when writing about the city, refers not only to an out-dated interpretation, but also obliterates the difference between a text and an observation. Writing about texts is a pleasurable and non-committing activity. For many, science is akin to vacation because they fear the price of true vocation. Instead of admitting their own ephemerality, the heads of the discipline cling to subjects of which they know nothing of, only to stay in the circuits of the media themselves. The reverse effect is that they thoroughly neglect their function as professors. But when the symbolic order of generational change is overridden by the financial calculus and neglect of teaching, science can not be at the service of society.

Photos: ZDF, Das Philosophische Quartett